SPEECH OF POPE Pius XII TO CATHOLIC JOURNALISTS

  SPEECH OF POPE Pius XII

TO CATHOLIC JOURNALISTS

GATHERED IN ROME FOR THEIR FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS*

Friday February 17, 1950

The importance of the Catholic Press, which you represent, dear sons, in this international congress, and the seriousness of the problems which arise for your study, have led us to deviate, in order to receive you, from the rule that we had to , to Our deep regret, impose on Us, to limit, to suspend even more often, Our speeches and Our speeches during the Holy Year. But, this time, We could not fail to add Our word to the great object of your meeting. It is vast as well as suggestive: the Catholic Press in the service of truth, justice and peace.

It is in consideration of one of the capital aspects of this service that We deem it appropriate to deliver for your meditations some fundamental principles concerning the role of the Catholic Press vis-à-vis public opinion. The fact is that it is at the forefront of those who contribute to its formation and dissemination.

Public opinion is, in fact, the prerogative of any normal society composed of men who, conscious of their personal and social conduct, are intimately involved in the community of which they are members. It is everywhere, ultimately, the natural echo, the common, more or less spontaneous resonance of events and the current situation in their minds and in their judgments.

Where no manifestation of public opinion appears, especially where it is necessary to note its real non-existence: for whatever reason its muteness or its absence is explained, we should see a vice, an infirmity, an illness of the social life.

Let us leave aside, obviously, the case where public opinion is silent in a world from which even just freedom is banned and where, only the opinion of the parties in power, the opinion of leaders or dictators is admitted. to make his voice heard. Stifling that of citizens, reducing them to forced silence, is, in the eyes of every Christian, an attack on the natural rights of man, a violation of the order of the world as God has established it.

Who does not guess the anguish, the moral disarray into which such a state of affairs throws the conscience of the men of the Press? In truth, we had hoped that the harsh experiences of the past would at least have served as a lesson to definitively free society from such scandalous tyranny and put an end to an outrage so humiliating for journalists and their readers. Yes, no less strongly than you, We had hoped for it and Our disappointment is no less bitter than yours.

Lamentable situation! Equally deplorable and, perhaps, even more disastrous in its consequences, is that of peoples where public opinion remains silent, not because it is gagged by an external force, but because its internal presuppositions are lacking, which must be found in men living in community.

We recognized, in public opinion, a natural echo, a common resonance, more or less spontaneous, of facts and circumstances in the minds and judgments of people who feel responsible and closely linked to the fate of their community. Our words indicate almost as many reasons why public opinion is so difficult to form and express. What we call public opinion today often only has the name, a name empty of meaning, something like a vague rumor, an artificial and superficial impression; nothing of an echo spontaneously awakened in the consciousness of society and emanating from it.

But these men, deeply imbued with a sense of responsibility and their close solidarity with the environment in which they live, where to look for them? No more traditions, no more stable home, no more security of existence, no more anything that could have stopped the work of disintegration and, too often, destruction. Add the abuse of force of gigantic mass organizations which, seizing modern man in their complicated gear, easily stifle all spontaneity of public opinion and reduce it to a blind and docile conformism of thoughts and judgments.

Would there then no longer be men worthy of the name in these unfortunate nations? men marked with the seal of a true personality, capable of making the inner life of society possible? men who, in the light of the central principles of life, in the light of their strong convictions, know how to contemplate God, the world and all the events, large or small, which occur there? Such men, it seems, thanks to the rectitude of their judgment and their feelings should be able to build, stone by stone, the solid wall on which the voice of these events, coming to knock, would be reflected in a spontaneous echo.No doubt, there are still some of these men, unfortunately too few in number! and, every day, more and more rare, as they are replaced by skeptical, jaded, careless subjects, without consistency or character, easily manipulated by a few masters of the game!

Modern man readily assumes independent and casual attitudes. They are, most often, only a facade behind which poor beings shelter, empty, flabby, without the strength of mind to unmask the lie, without the strength of soul to resist the violence of those who are clever. to set in motion all the springs of modern technology, all the refined art of persuasion, to strip them of their freedom of thought and make them like frail “reeds shaken by the wind” (Mt 11:7).

Would we dare to say with confidence that the majority of men are capable of judging, of assessing facts and currents at their true weight, so that opinion is guided by reason? However, this is a sine qua non condition for its value and health. Do we not see, instead, this way - the only legitimate one - of judging men and things according to clear rules and just principles, repudiated as an obstacle to spontaneity and, on the other hand, impulse and sensitive reaction of instinct and passion put in honor, as the only “values ​​of life”? Under the action of this prejudice, what remains of human reason and its force of penetration into the deep maze of reality is little.

Men of sense no longer count; remain those whose visual field does not extend beyond their narrow specialty, nor above purely technical power. It is hardly from these men that we can, ordinarily, expect the education of public opinion nor the firmness vis-à-vis the clever propaganda which arrogates to itself the privilege of shaping it as it pleases. . In this area, men of Christian spirit, simple, upright, but clear, although most of the time without much study, are, by far, superior to them. Men, to whom the role of enlightening and guiding public opinion should fall, often see themselves, some through their bad will or their insufficiency, others through impossibility or constraint, in a bad position to pay it freely and happily. This unfavorable situation particularly affects the Catholic Press in its action in the service of public opinion. Because all the failures, the inabilities, of which We have just spoken, are due to the violation of the natural organization of human society as God willed it, to the mutilation of man who, formed in the image of its Creator and endowed by him with intelligence, was brought into the world to be its lord, imbued with the truth, docile to the precepts of the moral law, natural law and the supernatural doctrine contained in the revelation of Christ.

In such a situation, the most formidable evil for the Catholic publicist would be pusillanimity and despondency. Look at the Church: for almost two millennia, through all the difficulties, the contradictions, the misunderstandings, the open or insidious persecutions, she has never been discouraged, she has never allowed herself to be depressed. Take a model from her. See, in the lamentable deficits that We have just pointed out, the double picture of what the Catholic Press should not be and what the Catholic Press should be.

In all its way of being and acting, it must oppose an insurmountable obstacle to the progressive decline, to the disappearance of the fundamental conditions of healthy public opinion, and to consolidate and further strengthen what remains. Let her willingly renounce the vain advantages of a vulgar interest or an ill-advised popularity; that she knows how to maintain herself with energetic and proud dignity, inaccessible to all direct or indirect attempts at corruption. May it have the courage - even at the cost of financial sacrifices - to ruthlessly ban from its columns any announcement, any publicity outrageous to faith or honesty. In doing so, it will gain in intrinsic value, it will end up winning esteem, then confidence; it will justify the often repeated instruction: “To every Catholic home, the Catholic newspaper”.

But putting everything to the best of the external and internal conditions in which it develops. and spreads, public opinion is however not infallible, nor always absolutely spontaneous. The complexity or novelty of events and situations can exert a marked influence on its formation, not to mention that it is not easily freed either from preconceived judgments or from the dominant current of ideas, even if the reaction would be objectively justified, even though it would impose itself. And it is here that the Press has an eminent role to play in the education of opinion, not to dictate or rule it, but to serve it usefully.

This delicate task presupposes, among the members of the Catholic Press, competence, a general culture, especially philosophical and theological, the gifts of style, and psychological tact. But what is essential to them above all is character. Character, that is to say quite simply the deep love and unalterable respect for the divine order, which embraces and animates all areas of life; love and respect that the Catholic journalist must not be content to feel and nourish in the secret of his own heart, but which he must cultivate in those of his readers. In certain cases, the flame thus springing up will be enough to rekindle or revive in them the almost dead spark of convictions and feelings asleep in the depths of their consciousness. In other cases, his breadth of vision and judgment may open their eyes too timidly fixed on traditional prejudices. In both cases, he will always be careful not to “form” opinion; better than that: he will aim to serve her.

We believe that this Catholic conception of public opinion, of its functioning and of the services rendered to it by the Press, is entirely correct, that it is necessary to pave for men, following your ideal, the path to truth, justice, peace.

Thus, by its attitude towards public opinion, it poses itself as a barrier in the face of totalitarianism which, by its very nature, is necessarily enemy of the true and free opinion of citizens. In fact, it is by its very nature that it denies this divine order and the relative autonomy that it recognizes in all areas of life, insofar as they all have their origin from God.

This opposition was once again clearly affirmed during two speeches in which we recently endeavored to highlight the position of the judge in the face of the law. We then spoke of the objective norms of law, of divine natural law which guarantees the legal life of men the autonomy required by a living and sure adaptation to the conditions of each time. That the totalitarians did not understand Us, they for whom the law and the right are only instruments in the hands of the dominant circles, We fully expected it. But to note the same misunderstandings on the part of certain circles which, for a long time, had posed as champions of the liberal conception of life which had condemned men for the sole grievance of their ties with laws and precepts contrary to morality , this is very likely to surprise us! Because finally, for the judge in pronouncing his sentence to feel bound by positive law and bound to interpret it faithfully, there is nothing incompatible with the recognition of natural law; even more, it is one of its requirements. But what we cannot legitimately grant is that this link is established exclusively by the act of the human legislator from whom the law emanates. This would mean recognizing in positive legislation a pseudo-majesty which would differ in no way from that which racism or nationalism attributed to totalitarian legal production, putting under its feet the natural rights of natural and moral persons. Here again, the Catholic Press has its marked place to express in clear formulas the thoughts of the people, confused, hesitant, embarrassed before the modern mechanism of positive legislation, a dangerous mechanism once we cease to see in the latter a derivation from the natural divine right.

This Catholic conception of public opinion and the service rendered to it by the Press is also a solid guarantee of peace. She takes up the cause of just freedom of thought and the right of men to their own judgment, but she looks at them in the light of divine law. Which amounts to saying that anyone who wants to loyally serve public opinion, whether it be social authority or the press itself, must absolutely refrain from any lies or any excitement. Is it not obvious that such a disposition of mind and will reacts effectively against the climate of war? Since, on the contrary, the so-called public opinion is dictated, imposed, willingly or by force, the lies, the partial prejudices, the artifices of style, the effects of voices and gestures, the exploitation of sentiment, come make illusory the just right of men to their own judgment, to their own convictions, then a heavy, unhealthy, artificial atmosphere is created - which, in the course of events, unexpectedly, as fatally as the odious chemical processes today too well known, suffocates or stupefies these same men and forces them to surrender their property and their blood for the defense and triumph of a false and unjust cause. Truly, where public opinion ceases to function freely, that is where peace is in danger.

Finally, we would like to add a word relating to public opinion within the Church itself (naturally, in matters left to free discussion). This can only be surprising to those who do not know the Church or who know it poorly. Because, finally, she is a living body and something would be missing from her life if public opinion were lacking, a defect for which the blame would fall on the Pastors and the faithful. But here again, the Catholic Press can be very useful. To this service, however, more than to any other, the journalist must bring that character of which We have spoken and which is made of unalterable respect and profound love towards the divine order, that is to say, in the present case, towards the Church as it exists, not only in eternal plans, but as it lives concretely here below in space and in time, divine yes, but made up of members and human organs.

If he possesses this character, the Catholic publicist will know how to guard against silent servilism as well as uncontrolled criticism. It will help, with firm clarity, the formation of a Catholic opinion in the Church, precisely when, as today, this opinion oscillates between the two equally dangerous poles, of an illusory and unreal spiritualism, of a defeatist and materializing realism. At a distance from these two extremes, the Catholic Press must exercise, among the faithful, its influence on public opinion in the Church. Only in this way can we elude all the false ideas, by excess or by default, about the role and possibilities of the Church in the temporal domain and, today, especially in the social question and the problem of peace.

We will not end without turning Our thoughts towards so many truly great men, honor and glory of journalism and the Catholic press of modern times. For more than a century, they have stood before us as models of spiritual activity; better still: from their ranks have risen today true martyrs for the good cause, valiant confessors among the spiritual and temporal difficulties of existence. Blessed be their memory! May their memory be a comfort and encouragement to you in the accomplishment of your difficult but important duty.

Confident that, following their example, you will faithfully and fruitfully fulfill yours, We wholeheartedly give you, dear sons, Our Apostolic Blessing.